Kurt Cobain, the Unplugged, an acoustic guitar and a cardigan
Kurt Cobain’s guitar and olive green sweater in the famous MTV Unplugged are exhibited together for the first time in Europe, at the prestigious Royal College of Music Museum in London, in an exhibition created by the Italian curator Gabriele Rossi Rognoni with the New York journalist Alan Di Perna, closing on November 18th, a symbolic date in memory of the acoustic special recorded on November 18th 1993. Meanwhile, seminars on Nirvana are held in the classrooms and it is no small thing, considering the prestige of the institution, which for the first time opens up to a rock exhibition, right in the rooms where the oldest existing guitar, dated 1581, is kept. There is also the opportunity to win Cobain’s original plectrum, one of the three Dunlops found in the case of his Martin. For £5 you can take part in the competition on the site, the proceeds will go to the student fund.
Guitar and sweater are two record-breaking items. There Martin D-18E Kurt Cobain he had bought it at Voltage Guitar in Los Angeles and, not knowing it, he had brought home a rarity. It was one of around 302 produced by Martin between 1958 and 1959, a less successful electrified acoustic, later adapted for him as he was left-handed. He became one of the most sought-after guitars only after his performance on MTV, and especially after his body was found lifeless on April 8, 1994, and the broadcaster broadcast the performance on repeat, as if it were a collective vigil to process mourning. Not just any guitar, then. Cobain kept it at home, practiced with it, used it for composing and on tour. It was inherited by her daughter Frances Bean, who gave it to her husband Isaiah Shiva. The divorce was followed by a long legal battle to recover it. Battle lost. It was auctioned in 2020 and bought by the Australian Peter Freeman for over six million dollars, an unbeaten figure so far. The green cardigan is also the most expensive ever at auction, selling for $334,000 in 2019, purchased by the collector Garrett Kletjian who, to protect him, even renounced the offer of the Louvre. Cobain bought the cardigan, as usual, in a thrift shop, and although it later inspired a luxury line (called Kurtigan), it originally represented the grunge aesthetic, that anti-consumerist idea of recycling and renouncing the sartorial excesses of celebrities. The item dates back to the 1960s, it’s missing a button, it has a crusty brown stain on the pocket, two cigarette burns, it smells of mold. Since that night MTV has never been washed. Courtney Love gave it to the family nanny Jackie Farry, who kept it in a safe deposit box until she had to sell it to pay for her cancer treatment, with her widow’s approval. These are the individual stories of the two objects (which will become even more iconic now that MTV risks closing permanently) but then there is the macro-story that incorporates them into a memorable epiphany of the small screen.
Nirvana didn’t want to go to MTV, they had declined the invitation several times. The unplugged that they had seen until then were fake, of artists who remade their most famous songs acoustically, without adding anything and, even worse, without taking anything away, that is, without revealing themselves. Cure, REM, Pearl Jam did well though. For Nirvana it could have been an opportunity to show a more intimate side, and for Kurt Cobain to finally see himself recognized as a songwriter. He was very keen on it, but he first had to strip the songs, get to the point. To prepare, they had already rehearsed some acoustic numbers on the “In Utero” tour, with cellist Lori Goldston (it was unusual to say the least to put a cello in such a band) and Pat Smear of the Germs as an added guitarist, yet the audience kept throwing stuff on stage and running to stick their heads into the amplifiers. Would a bare set, without distortion and shattered instruments, have worked? Nirvana agreed to do it on anti-television terms: no “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, no big hits (apart from “Come As You Are”), a few not particularly famous covers, and Meat Puppets as guests. “Who the hell am I?” was the reaction of MTV producers. They expected Eddie Vedder, Tori Amos, recognizable faces or voices, but instead they found two punk brothers and a weakened lineup. Nirvana had organized the perfect crime.
The first rehearsals in New Jersey had gone badly: they never managed to do the entire set. The belief spread that in the end they would give up. Meanwhile, Cobain demanded control over every aspect of the television special. He saw the sketch of the scenography, asked to have a huge red cloth behind him and said: “I want more lilies and more candles.” Producer Alex Coletti asked, “Like a funeral?” Cobain replied, “Exactly, like a funeral.” There was nothing macabre in that indication, no dark tone, no afterthought. It was just his idea of staging. Now, the stargazer lily (explicitly asked by Kurt) blooms between May and August, where the heck to find it in November? The production went crazy to find some real ones and mixed them with artificial ones.
On the day of recording at the Sony Music Studios in Manhattan, Grohl and Novoselic show up first. Kurt isn’t there, and it’s not out of the question that he won’t show up. Coletti gathers courage and gives Grohl a pair of drum brushes. Suspiciously early, he passes them off as a Christmas present. In fact, he hopes you use them instead of drumsticks to soften the sound. Miraculously, Grohl doesn’t bite him. Cobain arrives later, without Courtney Love and drinking a cup of tea. He hasn’t been well for a long time. First the overdose, then the withdrawal symptoms. He has a mastiff biting his stomach. He sleeps little and badly. She’s wearing sneakers, that olive cardigan, a feminist punk t-shirt Frightwig. He doesn’t joke, he doesn’t smile, he causes a bit of concern. Replaces the bar stool with a normal chair. He goes and picks her up at the office alone. The nervousness is felt because this time Nirvana are exposed to the bone. They try the songs, they don’t work, they move on without solving the problems they encounter. Kurt is uncomfortable, during rehearsals he asks people he knows to sit in the front row because, he says: “I hate strangers”. He insists he wants to pass the guitar Martin D-18E in the Fender Twin Reverb amplifier, and it’s a big problem for Coletti, because that is a precise format, unplugged precisely, and it must be respected, at least apparently. So Coletti invents a way to save the day: he creates a container for the amplifier so that it looks like a normal stage light. Meanwhile, there are those who water the real and fake flowers, those who spread sand on the ground, in case the lit candles fall.
The atmosphere after the soundcheck remains tense. The production is pushing to add the hits to the setlist but Nirvana are adamant, although almost certain that everything will go wrong. Before starting the live show, Cobain goes for a walk around the block to break the ice with those waiting for him outside. At 8.30pm the public enters the room, the seats in front go to the members of the fan club. At 9pm the attack is on “About A Girl”. In a second, the uncertainties vanish. It is immediately clear that something unrepeatable is happening. Unlike all the artists before them, Nirvana does a single take, an hour straight, with at least three key moments. The first: Kurt guarantees that with his version he will ruin “The Man Who Sold the World” and instead, from that moment on, anyone who hears it done by David Bowie will think it is a Nirvana cover. The second: Kurt surprisingly decides to do “Pennyroyal Tea” alone, he falls into an excruciating text, at a certain point he stops, he doesn’t seem to be able to continue, he recovers, he brings it to completion. Deep down, everyone hopes he will do the same with his life. The third: Nirvana ignores the audience’s requests and ends with “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”a traditional Lead Belly-style blues, «my favorite performer» admits Kurt. Not a fly flies in the studio. The song seems to be his, he leads it like a bride, with closed eyelids, then he stifles a howl, he lets out a sigh that seems like an exhalation, he opens his blue eyes wide as if he had seen something horrible. The suspension is broken by applause. Coletti goes behind the scenes to convince him to do an encore. Kurt replies, “No, I couldn’t match the last song.” And he was right. He had gone beyond the skin, offering the maximum of his truth.
The unplugged it aired on December 16, 1983. Then Kurt really pulled the plug and that live was looped for days. It was there that it took on another meaning: his live elegy, his requiem, the last time we heard his living voice, the last time his fingers touched those strings. He knew it, he already knew everything, it was his goodbye. But those who later saw the full, unedited version of the show on DVD discovered that it hadn’t all been so desperate and serious. Between one song and another Cobain had joked and laughed several times. So maybe he wasn’t singing his end at that moment. Indeed, perhaps he imagined a new beginning. Many of his close associates think that if he hadn’t died, the next album would have been more like MTV Unplugged that to “Nevermind”.
